Thomas Hardy's fiction has had a remarkably strong appeal for general readers for decades, and his poetry has been acclaimed as among the most influential of the twentieth century. His work still creates passionate advocacy and opposition. The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy is an essential introduction to this most enigmatic of writers. These commissioned essays from an international team of contributors comprises a general overview of all Hardy' s work and specific demonstrations of Hardy's ideas and literary skills. Individual essays explore Hardy's biography, aesthetics, his famous attachment to Wessex, and the impact on his work of developments in science, religion and philosophy in the late nineteenth century. Hardy's writing is also analysed against developments in contemporary critical theory and issues such as sexuality and gender. The volume also contains a detailed chronology of Hardy's life and publications, and a guide to further reading.

"Well equipped with notes, suggestions for further reading, and a chronology of Hardy's life and publications, this volume will be a reliable, trusted companion for serious upper-division undergraduate students and scholars and for sophisticated general readers." Choice

"The contributors to The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy are among the most seasoned and authoritative in the Hardy canon of criticism. The various experts...remind us to pay attention to artistic intention, to the words on the page, as well as to the contexts - biographical, intellectual, social - that inform the texts of a still provocative writer." English Literature in Transition 1880-1920

"The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy is a useful introduction to Hardy's work. It is remarkably diverse in its subjects, approaches, and methodlogies. As a resource from which almost any reader can extract something useful, The Cambridge Companion works very well...it gains in variety and capacity to reach a very wide range of readers." Victorian Periodicals Review

"The essays reflect a variety of critical and theoretical approaches..." Reference & Research Book News

"presents essays by thoroughly knowledgeable Hardy scholars, balancing the larger views with the meticulously read details, and demonstrating to newer readers that the study of Thomas Hardy has not by any means been exhausted by these readers whose essays here testify to Hardy's abiding, often irresistible hold on his readers' attention." Victorian Studies Summer 2001